Should "Bible" = "Word of God"?

Faith & Science Conversation
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There seems to be a fundamental confusion on this thread about how proper names work.

The name of my country is the United States of America. How about, because of the partisan rancor that characterizes the country, I say it shouldn’t be called “United.” (That could, after all, be confusing to people.) So, I declare the country is now named States of America. YOU CAN’T DO THAT.

The title of the Bible, conventionally, in English, is Holy Bible. It makes just as much sense to criticize someone’s reference to a book title for using a “pretentious” adjective as it does to criticize someone’s reference to the United States as inaccurate for using the adjective “united.” It isn’t an adjective in that usage, it’s part of a name. Same thing with the proper noun, God’s Word. If you don’t think the Bible is “God’s,” it’s irrelevant to the conventional use of the proper noun. If you think the Big Island in Hawaii should really be called the “Medium-Sized Island,” too bad, so sad. That isn’t its name and your opinion about how appropriate its name is has zero relevance to the way people are going to continue using its name to refer to its namesake.

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I’m making Devil’s food cake. Does someone want to argue with me that because I called the recipe by its conventional name in English that I am somehow asserting a claim that the Devil eats, and that his favorite food is cake. Someone probably should correct me, since the Bible does not back that up, we know Satan is a spiritual being who does not eat, and if he did, he would probably prefer stones turned into bread or forbidden fruit, not chocolate cake, obviously. So I clearly shouldn’t use that proper noun for cake, since it gives all the wrong theological implications.

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I was about to call you a heretic, but then I remembered that I vacuum with a Dirt Devil, so I guess I can’t. :wink:

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Hi Richard, I don’t believe we’ve interacted before. Welcome.

Richard, in your first proposition you say:

The bible is only sacred or sacrosanct to those who believe in it.

This is a perfectly responsable factual statement. No issues there in fact I agree with you. The sacredness of scripture is an article of faith. Why should I expect those who do not hold this position to give scripture the same regard that I do? After all, I do not give the same regard to the Quran that an orthodox Muslim might. To expect person X to hold to my beliefs about object Y, when I have no intention of sharing their beliefs about object Z is both illogical and hypocritical. Thank you for this important reminder.

However, I do have issues with your second statement:

So calling it “Holy” is pretentious at best.

I’m not sure the second proposition is demonstrated by the first. i say this because no evidence is provided in the first proposition to justify the second.

All this might sound pedantic but I think it is an important point. One cannot make an accurate generalisation about another’s attitude, motive or character from their doctrine of scripture. Nor do a person’s attitude, character or motives have any bearing on the truth or falsity of that doctrine.

As a result it ends up appearing as if you have made a logic leap. That is, jumping from A to C without B to bridge the two. In doing so it looks as if you are presenting an opinion as a fact. I’ve no doubt this was unintentional.

Of course, had you said, ”the bible is only sacred or sacrosanct to those who believe in it. So, in my opinion calling it “Holy” is pretentious at best.“ that would be a different matter entirely. Since it is your opinion it does not require evidence to justify it - that is why it is an opinion. And do readers would be left to decide the accuracy of it for themselves.

Then again, perhaps I have misunderstood you. Maybe you were using ‘pretentious’ in a way that I am unfamiliar with? In which case I’d be grateful if you could help clarify things for me.

Best wishes. Liam

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Given the situation in the UK over Brexit and the possibility of a second vote on Scottish independence, the title ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ is starting to look more dubious by the day. And as for ’kingdom’, well, everyone knows our monarch is Queen Elizabeth II! :face_with_monocle:

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A difference is that “United States of America” is the name established in the Constitution.

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When the canon was set, the term established was not “Word of God.”

At the first church council which set the 27-book NT, the Council of Carthage, the documents were described:

Canon 24. (Greek xxvii.)

That nothing be read in church besides the Canonical Scripture

Item, that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in church under the name of divine Scripture.

But the Canonical Scriptures are as follows:

  • Genesis.
  • Exodus.
  • Leviticus…
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Where something got its name is irrelevant to whether or not it is a proper noun.

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That doesn’t sound like what was being discussed

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I have been discussing proper nouns and capitalization of proper nouns the whole time. The fact that you and some other people think that we are discussing opinions about whether those proper nouns should never have originated and whether those proper nouns are “biblical” is beside the point. None of your opinions on these matters in any way invalidates the grammatical points I have been making about the proper noun “God’s Word” being a synonym for the proper noun “The Bible,” and the appropriateness of capitalizing proper nouns in English.

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I am beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way my words are being taken. I am not used to having to be so careful and precise outside of a pulpit. Nor for a “courteous” and “PC” ruling to be taken as something either derogatory (to the bible) or “pedantic” (literary).
The bible was termed “holy” when the majority considered it so. (even those who did not actually believe it). But, just as the word “gay” has changed its meaning, so has the term “Holy Bible”. I do consider it “Holy”, but I am a Christian. I know for a fact that there are a great number of people who would think nothing of dropping, burning or disregarding it. To them it is not holy. And as such the term becomes inappropriate.
Likewise, the Term “Word of God” is appropriate in terms of it is a book of (about) God. It would not be so if the meaning was the same as “words of God”. Because it was not authored by God or consist of only His words, (direct or indirect).

Richard

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Ok, whether you want to pad the resume of the Bible, making claims for it that it never makes for itself, using the misnomer “Word of God” or “word of god,” seems an insignificant difference.

The canonization process called the documents the “canonical scriptures” or the “divine scriptures,” while 2 Timothy 3 referred to the Septuagint as the “sacred scriptures.”

To call the scriptures the “Word of God” or the “word of god” or the “word of God” has no validity in church history, as far as I can tell.

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You are being ridiculous. Using something’s name (capitalization issues aside) isn’t “padding a resume” or making any kind of commentary. If I refer to the rapper Lil Wayne, I’m not giving my opinion about whether or not I think he is little or whether or not his name is appropriate. I’m just using his name. Lots of names could be argued to be misnomers. It doesn’t affect their ability to effectively identify their referents, as long as the speech community recognizes the name. Chinese checkers isn’t checkers and isn’t from China. Arabic numerals came from India. The European Union includes territories located in Asia, Africa, North and South America as well. None of that hinders people from understanding what people are referring to when they say Chinese checkers, Arabic numerals or the European Union. You cannot arbitrarily change the names of those things because in your opinion the labels aren’t appropriate or accurate. It is the same with God’s Word and Holy Bible. Those are names people use. Your opinion on whether or not the names are misnomers, or whether the names are “historically valid” in church history is completely irrelevant to the fact that they are widely used in English. People use those names all the time and it is silly to tell people they are “wrong” to use the names that things obviously have in their language.

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Of all the things we discuss here, it’s surprising that this has turned into one of the most caustic threads.

Despite the strong disagreement, are these points of common ground?

  1. There’s nothing grammatically improper or unusual about calling the Bible the Word of God.

  2. In the Bible “the word of God” typically refers to God’s message, not specifically the Bible.

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I agree, only I would not say typically. It never refers to the Bible.

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To jump back into the ridicularity here …

It bothers me if someone tries to correct someone else about how they should pronounce their own name. Everybody has the right to decide how they want their name pronounced, right? Sure … they may have a less than good idea about it and by ignoring common convention have to be forever correcting people, but that’s their right, right? So if my name is ‘Bill’ but whenever people call me that, I correct them and say “no, actually I pronounce that as James”, you all just shake your heads in sympathy over my poor initial choice, but carry on calling me as I wish, right?

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Yes, that caveat was more for Revelation 19:13 than any verse supposedly referring to the Bible.

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I am being ridiculous?

You are the one who has renamed the Bible the “Word of God.”

The term “Word of God” never means Bible in scripture, so you are padding the resume.

I am sorry that you cannot see that, and that you cannot see the damage that you do.

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On point 1, it is improper to call the Bible the “Word of God,” because that term has a different meaning in the Bible itself.

I agree with your point 2, although there are other meanings of the term “Word of God” in the Bible.

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Yes, the Bible never calls itself the “Word of God,” so Christy’s calling it the “Word of God” is like calling me ‘Joe.’

That is not my name.

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But can you agree that it is not grammatically improper?

Vance, compare that to what Christy has said: